With the Second Aperture Gu secured, Fang Yuan immediately launched the second phase of his plan.
October 24th... 5:39 P.M.; Fang Yuan calculated the time precisely. Within a few minutes, Feng Jin Huang should be reaching the peak of Dang Hun Mountain. He knew this from his deep experience and memories accumulated over five hundred years, having read her biography.
Dang Hun Mountain was the production source of Guts Gu. Guts Gu, despite being mortal gu, were not ordinary. They would help Fang Yuan greatly in the future if he could get ahold of the mountain.
He retrieved Divine Travel Gu. It had an intoxicating aura even to someone like him and he had to handle it with care.
Divine Travel Gu could take the person who used it anywhere, but it had a major flaw - that place would be random. One could very well end up at the bottom of a volcano or some other dangerous area.
To fix this, Verdant Great Sun had refined it into Fixed Immortal Travel Gu.
As was said in The Legends of Ren Zu:
"Go up into the sky, and in the Azure Heaven amongst the nine heavens there is a bamboo forest. Inside the bamboo forest, pluck a jade bamboo that is jade sky in color. Next, go to Blue Heaven, and during the night time, collect the eight-sided diamonds amongst the star fragments. Next, when it is dawn, fly into the sky and use the glory of the rising sun to refine me into Fixed Immortal Travel Gu."
The 'jade bamboo' was Jade Sky Gu and the 'eight-sided diamond' was Fixed Star Gu.
Having already secured Fixed Star Gu after Qing Shu killed Kong Ri Tian and tearing it from the corpse's elbow, he tossed it into his refinement cauldron alongside Jade Sky Gu.
The refinement required one final, critical ingredient: the Light of the Immemorial Nine Heavens.
"Before arranging for that, I must settle this," Fang Yuan murmured, turning his attention to the Spring Autumn Cicada.
He could delay no longer. If he kept it sealed, the Spring Autumn Cicada would starve to death.
Fang Yuan unsealed it.
The Spring Autumn Cicada emerged withered and brittle, looking like a dried-up twig that was just an inch from death. The moment its seals dissolved, it began greedily drinking from the River of Time, rapidly recovering its vitality. Had he delayed by even one more moment, it would've starved to death.
However, because the Spring Autumn Cicada resided inside his aperture, Heaven's Will instantly detected Fang Yuan's actions. A blessed land or grotto-heaven was one of the few places that Heaven's Will could not reach, but Fang Yuan had now exposed the current state of his aperture to Heaven's Will.
And now it knew what he was planning. It could see that the Rank 9 gu worm was close to its refinement and could now deduce what it was. The puzzle pieces began to fall together as it gained this new bit of information.
...
A wave of cataclysmic cosmic rage reverberated throughout the entire world!
Dark, apocalyptic tribulation clouds materialized out of thin air, blanketing the sky above San Cha Mountain. They were visible even from thousands of li away. Gu Immortals who glanced upon this wondered, "Is that a Myriad Tribulation forming?"
The Ba Gui land spirit had already detonated itself, the blessed land was about to die, though many hadn't realized that yet. Multiple holes appeared in the blessed land.
"What is happening?! What is that?!" shouted Xiao Mang, a mortal Gu Master eager to breach the Three Kings Inheritance.
A small loophole had opened up before him, and eager to exploit it, Xiao Mang flew up and activated several gu worms to try and make it bigger so he could go in. Before, he just wanted a way in but now, he also wanted to find shelter away from the strange clouds; not realizing that the blessed land was doomed.
Rank Four, Gather Light Gu!
Rank Five, Extreme Light Gu!
Rank Five, River Under the Sun Gu!
They formed the killer move: Torrential Light Str-
ZAP!
But before he could even finish the thought, a massive streak of tribulation lightning descended from up above, smiting him.
Xiao Mang, his aperture, and his gu worms were instantly vaporized into ash.
Heaven's Will was done playing games.
Previously, Heaven's Will had tolerated Fang Yuan's disruptions because it intended to use him as a pawn to stop Spectral Soul Demonic Venerable in the coming future. Him finding the Spring Autumn Cicada in the first place was also a ploy by Heaven's Will. Since Fang Yuan was an otherworldly demon, he could go back in time and actually alter Fate.
That was just how strong and terrifying Spectral Soul Demonic Venerable had become in the future - so much so that even Heaven's Will had no recourse other than to turn back time using the Spring Autumn Cicada in order to deal with him.
Fang Yuan was well aware Heaven's Will was handling him with gloved hands for a "higher purpose", though he wasn't aware of the full details of what that was even now.
But now, Heaven's Will possessed enough information to realize the true scale of Fang Yuan's - and by extension, the Embodiment of Humanity's Collective Will's - plot.
It no longer cared about stopping Spectral Soul Demonic Venerable - in its eyes, Fang Yuan had become an immediate, catastrophic threat to the fundamental balance of the world and dealing with him took priority over everything else. He was a blasphemy against the law of Heaven far greater than Spectral Soul could ever hope to be. Someone who needed to be killed without a moment's hesitation.
Since it couldn't do so immediately with him relatively safe in his Immortal Aperture, it did its best to stop his plans.
Fixed Star Gu, Jade Sky Gu - even if lost they could still be reobtained, though with minor difficulty.
But the last ingredient was borderline impossible to find.
Where would one normally obtain the Light of the Immemorial Nine Heavens?
In the Antiquity Era, sunlight passing through the Nine Heavens was filtered into Immemorial Light by interacting with each of them. But since seven of those heavens had been destroyed by Ren Zu's children, the material was completely extinct in the modern era.
There were methods like Xiao Mang's killer move Torrential Light Stream that could mimic this main ingredient; which is why Heaven's Will had gotten rid of him in such a brutal manner.
If Fang Yuan had the recipe for Rank 5 Wealth Gu, that could be a substitute for the Light of the Immemorial Heavens; but he only had it for Rank 3 Wealth Gu and had not deduced how to advance it any further. His requests on Yellow Treasure Heaven for any higher-ranked recipes had gone unanswered.
But all of that had already been accounted for.
"Too late," Fang Yuan sneered. Heaven's Will was in the dark regarding this matter; but Fang Yuan had already obtained the Light of the Immemorial Heavens a long time ago!
Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable had left behind four paintings for Fang Yuan.
The first depicted a set of furniture, containing the Dollhouse.
The second was a black canvas holding Thieving Heaven Demonic Venerable's will, first introducing Fang Yuan to Rank 0 gu worm mechanics.
The third had been blank and been painstakingly filled up by Fang Yuan in Shang Clan City, and was also where he had underwent his Immortal Ascension.
The fourth and final painting had remained unused.
Until now.
It was a canvas where brilliant, shifting colors blended together as if one had turned a rainbow into liquid form and swirled it upon the painting. The Painting Path methods Genesis Lotus had used had allowed its secret to remain hidden even from Heaven's Will.
The Heavenly Court had stood for over three millions years. It had unfathomably deep foundations stacked over that time period. It had accumulated resources from the reigns of three different Venerables across the ages. How could they possibly lack the Light of the Immemorial Nine Heavens?
Fang Yuan laughed, flinging the fourth painting into the air. It spun rapidly before unleashing a blinding beam of authentic Immemorial Light directly onto his refinement cauldron.
The refinement matrix flared with magnificent brilliance.
Yet, a risk of failure still remained, especially with his luck.
Or was there?
Fang Yuan produced a gu worm that looked like a grey stone disc. This was Undefeated Hundred Battles Gu - he tossed it directly into the refinement mixture.
The matrix instantly stabilized, guaranteeing absolute success.
Undefeated Hundred Battles Gu was a Rank 5 Gu whose effect would normally be restricted to the refinement of other Rank 5 Gu. It could not be used to guarantee the success of the refinement of an Immortal Gu if only mortal materials and mortal gu were being used; the difference in dao marks was too great.
But here, Fang Yuan was refining one Rank 6 Gu into another Rank 6 Gu, and so its effect still applied!
Second Aperture Gu had multiple sets of materials, there had been no need to expend it there. Here though, he only had a single shot at succeeding.
The mixture in front of him soon stabilized.
From the refinement cauldron, a ethereal, jade-green butterfly emerged. With every flap of its wings, a profound Rank 6 Immortal aura rippled outwards: Fixed Immortal Travel Gu! Before it had finished, Fang Yuan had consumed another set of four first-class wines and obtained yet another copy of Divine Travel Gu.
Using Fixed Immortal Travel Gu, so long as Fang Yuan imagined a place in the world, he could go there instantly. The only restriction was that the picture had to be clear and it can't have changed too much from what he envisioned. He had been to the place he wanted to go to in his previous life and remembered its every detail.
Fang Yuan consumed a single bead of Grape Green Immortal Essence and activated Fixed Immortal Travel Gu!
***
Meanwhile, near the peak of Hu Immortal Blessed Land, Feng Jin Huang was panting heavily, exhausted but beaming with supreme pride. Her soul had taken quite the toll while climbing up here. But it would soon be worth it.
She was merely a few steps away from the summit of Dang Hun Mountain.
She could already taste victory.
The moment she set foot on the peak, the land spirit would acknowledge her as its master, and this blessed land and the legendary Dang Hun Mountain would belong to her!
She was an absolute genius who had never suffered a single defeat in her entire life.
And that was not going to change today!
How could she possibly lose now?
But right then...